Family and Friends

Monday, February 25, 2013

On this date in 1713, three hundred years ago, the first King in Prussia, Friedrich I, who established the first German kingdom of modern times died and was succeeded by his son Friedrich Wilhelm I(pictured). Friedrich Wilhelm I, who married a daughter of George I of
Great Britain, would go on to reign for twenty-seven prosperous and mostly
peaceful years, proving to be a capable and benevolent ruler, unless you
were his son (ask Friedrich II).

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Today is the 400th anniversary of the
election of 16-year-old Michael Romanov as Tsar of Russia, ending the
Time of Troubles and establishing the great Romanov dynasty, which would
reign for the next 304 years. May it do so again! Боже, Царя храни!

Tsar Michael I (1596-1645) and Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918); first and last (for the time being) of the Romanov dynasty

It's hard to know exactly what to think of Vichy France, but I think this comment of mine posted today at The Thinking Housewife adequately sums up a royalist's necessary ambivalence regarding France in World War II, during which there were many villains and few if any untarnished heroes from our perspective:

I was disappointed to see one of your contributors regurgitate, without
being challenged by anyone, the standard simplistic liberal “Resistance
Good/Collaborators Bad” line. In France during World War II there were
no easy answers and probably no spotless “good guys.” But “conservative
Catholics” would have had valid reasons for regarding the
“collaborationist” Vichy regime as the lesser evil, and indeed many
conservative Catholics were to be found among the ranks of real or
alleged “collaborators.” The Resistance may have included some
conservative Catholics, but it was a predominantly left-wing movement
and became increasingly so towards the end of and after the war,
ruthlessly purging France of rightists, who were often shot without
trial. Who were the “enemies of France” in the 1940s? (For that
matter, who were the “enemies of France” during the Revolutionary wars
of the 1790s? I would say that at that time loyalty to Catholic &
Royal France required “treason” to the regicidal Republic.)
The question is not as simple as it sounds. From an authentically
French traditionalist, i.e. royalist, point of view, the Third Republic
(1870-1940) was not really a legitimate entity to begin with and once
defeated was not automatically entitled to the loyalty of right-wing
Frenchmen. I think you would find that in some ways the social policies
of the “collaborationist” Vichy regime (whose traditionalist motto
“Work, Family, Fatherland” replaced the Jacobin “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity”) were closer to the worldview espoused by “The Thinking
Housewife” than those of the various French Republics before or since. I
say this as a person of partially Jewish ancestry totally opposed to
Nazism, but also totally opposed to Communism and French republicanism.

So
the fake "right-winger" Marine Le Pen says that the anti-papal "Femen"
naked protest in Notre Dame Cathedral was "a violation of republican
values." No, no, no, a thousand times no! It was a perfectly logical
and natural expression of "republican values," which are anti-Catholic
to the core. Has she never heard of the prostitute enthroned as
"Goddess of Reason" at Notre Dame during the Revolution? This is the
problem with the whole French so-called "Right": they still believe in
the Republic instead of admitting that it is a diabolical illegitimate
abomination that must be destroyed. Death to "republican values" and
Vive le Roi!

Archaeologists of the University of Leicester have confirmed that remainsfound under a Leicester car park are indeed those of King Richard III. It's a good day when top news headlines
concern a 15th-century king. Whatever the truth about Richard III,
congratulations to the University of Leicester archaeological team on
all their hard work. And Requiescat in Pace.